


I'm Tired of Being What You Want Me to Be

by GilraenDernhelm



Series: Be The Lightning In Me [4]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fantasy, Father/Son, Hectic AU, Prequel, Romance, sibling relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-26
Updated: 2013-06-28
Packaged: 2017-12-16 06:07:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/858724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GilraenDernhelm/pseuds/GilraenDernhelm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>First prequel to 'If I Told You What I've Done,' charting the origins of Arya and Jaime's marriage. Title is from 'Numb' by Linkin Park.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

‘You can’t _do_ this to me!’

Father remained behind his desk as he always did; sporting the same cold, unmoving, stick-up-the-arse expression that he wore year in and year out no matter what anybody threw at him. That look had been decorating his face for as long as Jaime could remember, and for as long as Jaime could remember, he had hated him for it; the cold, selfish, inhuman bastard.

When Jaime had been younger, he had tried so hard to please him. He had tried every day. But that face was always the same; a face to be feared rather than loved. Not that that had stopped Jaime from loving him. He hated himself for loving him. And he hated himself for disappointing him.

If Jaime had been armed, he would have run him through then and there and gone to the King’s chambers to put a sword through Robert’s eye and out the back of his skull.

_‘Don’t get into the habit,’ Robert had laughed when people had first begun to name him Kingslayer._

_We’ll fucking see about that, you drink-sodden oaf._

When Jaime had joined the Kingsguard, he had thought he was escaping to the realm of things that were worth loving. He had Cersei, and he had his sword. With his white cloak, he had claimed his freedom, but freedom had had its own horrors; horrors that burnt green and screamed at him at night; cries for mercy and curses and the wails of dying men. But when Robert had taken the throne, things had become good again. More or less. Jaime had fought so hard for things to be good again. More or less. And now that too was being taken from him, by a person he could not disobey, no matter how hard he tried to convince himself of the contrary.

Father’s tone resembled that of a monarch dictating a letter to a scribe.

‘The High Septon has agreed to absolve you of your vows - ’

‘ _Excuse_ me?’

‘And the absolution ceremony will take place in the Great Sept tomorrow at midday.’

_I will not let him separate me and Cersei again. I will not let him. I am her and she is me. We came into this world together; we belong together._

_Oh, gods. Cersei. She’ll murder both him and me. Or she’ll get_ me _to murder_ him _– oh, gods._

He felt trapped, like a lion locked in a cage scarcely large enough to hold a rat; so helpless he could barely think. He was a boy again, a mouse, dirt under his Father’s boots.

He thought of his twin, summoning her strength.

_Help me, Sister._

‘I won’t do it.’

Father smiled at him, amused.

‘You will.’

Jaime slammed his fist onto Father’s table, upsetting an inkwell.

‘NO, I will NOT!’

‘You are my _son_!’ Father roared in reply, ‘and you will do as I command, or suffer the consequences!’

Jaime snorted.

‘The _consequences_? What will you do? Hang me? Ship me off to the Wall?’

‘Don’t be flippant, child!’

‘I am no child!’

‘That is not immediately evident.’

‘How can I act otherwise when you would chain me to that dirty little creature for the rest of my life?’

He shuddered just to think of her. The other day he’d seen her climbing out of a sewer. _A sewer_. She had looked little better than a commoner, covered in mud, and worse. The mere thought of fucking her made his stomach turn.

Father, however, clearly had a stronger stomach than he did, and dismissed his protests with a flash of his ice blue eyes.

‘Lady’s Arya’s sense of hygiene, or lack thereof, is irrelevant. You will marry her, put a son in her, _a Lannister son_ , and gain our House a foothold in the North!’

Jaime hadn’t expected that. He’d been too livid to consider that Father might be forcing him to marry for any reason other than to torment him.

‘Why the fuck do you want a foothold in the North?’ Jaime asked, baffled.

Tywin took a casual sip of wine.

‘That is not your concern.’

Jaime frowned. There had to be more to it than that. If this were only about the family name, Father could have married him off to any highborn girl from a great Southern house. If, however, he really did care about the North, for some obscure reason of his own, then marrying his eldest son to Arya Horseface Stark was a perfect political match. But Jaime wasn’t convinced by either of those reasons. There had to be something more.

‘This is about Tyrion, isn’t it?’ he asked quietly.

Father did not give the slightest indication that the question had affected him.

‘Your brother could not be further from my mind at this moment,’ he replied, as though answering a question about the weather.

Jaime pressed on.

‘You don’t want him becoming Lord of Casterly Rock.’

‘While the thought does not appeal to me -’

‘You bastard.’

Father’s face went red.

‘Sit down and be silent.’

Jaime threw himself into a chair, folded his arms and fumed. Of all the injustices Tyrion had suffered at their Father’s hands, going to such trouble to rob him of his rightful inheritance had to be among the most perverse.

_Why doesn’t Father_ see _him?_ Jaime thought, _why can’t he? And why does he love his blindness so much that he needs to destroy_ my _life in order to hold onto it?_

Jaime felt ashamed at his own selfishness, and coloured slightly.

_Don’t pity yourself. Pity Tyrion. All this is being done to hurt him._

He knew his brother would not blame him, but that did not assuage the guilt he felt. Looking back at his father, who had sat watching him all the while, he was once again seized by the feeling of being a boy rather than a grown man.

_We are pawns to him. Pawns in a game of cyvasse. It is all we ever were. It is all we will ever be._

Father was now trying to appeal to his ego. Perhaps he knew him just a little after all.

‘You are blessed with abilities that few men possess,’ Father remarked, ‘and what have you done with these blessings? You’ve served as a glorified bodyguard to two kings, one a madman, the other a drunk. But I have never ceased to think of you as my heir. The time is now right for you to become the man you were always meant to be. Not next year, not tomorrow. Now.’

‘ _Why_ now? And why _her_?’

‘She is of ancient blood, with a very old name.’

‘She’s a child!’

‘She is fertile.’

‘She wears breeches and carries a sword!’

‘I don’t care if she walks naked and carries two battleaxes! If I die tomorrow, the family name dies with me. The family name must live on. It’s all that lives on. Not your absurd sense of loyalty to an outmoded code of conduct, nor your preferences when it comes to women, but family. And I will be thrice damned if that obscene little monkey will be my successor in continuing our line.’

‘He’s a better man than you give him credit for.’

Father looked at him like he’d been spat in the face. Jaime rose from his seat, and looked him in the eye, his heart pounding in his ears. His words emerged in a deathly whisper.

‘I shall never forgive you for this.’

 

* * *

 

 

‘How can they do this to me?’ Arya murmured, staring hard at the opposite wall.

‘The King commands it,’ Sansa replied softly, one arm around her sister, ‘once that’s happened, there is nothing else to be done.’

Sansa was the third person to try reasoning with Arya that morning. Their father had come first, and had been liberally screamed at before having a hairbrush thrown at him. Hearing the commotion while passing Arya’s chambers on her way to sept, their mother had entered and had hit her daughter full in the face; not hard, but hard enough to get her to stop screeching. She had then tried kindness, pleading, and appeals to reason and duty to the realm while Arya had stared mutinously at the wall, refusing to listen to a word. Then Sansa had come, asking politely to be given leave to speak to her sister. After their mother had departed, Sansa hadn’t said a word, sitting beside Arya on the bed and waiting for her to speak. ‘How can they do this to me?’ were the first quiet words the younger Stark daughter had spoken that day.

‘Why does the King get to decide whom I marry?’ Arya snorted, taking Sansa’s hand, ‘it’s perfectly obvious he’s only doing it to annoy Lord Tywin.’

‘Perhaps that’s what Lord Tywin wants him to think,’ Sansa replied.

Arya felt confused.

‘Why would Lord Tywin want that?’

Sansa looked confused too.

‘I hate this city.’

So did Arya. No weirwood trees; no godswoods worthy of the name; no friends. The heat, the smell, the whispers, the Game. She hated it; and knowing that Sansa did too reassured her. It did not make her less angry.

‘Why should I be a pawn in whatever stupid game he’s playing?’ Arya grumbled, ‘and why is Father letting him? Why doesn’t he refuse?’

Sansa was the soul of patience and understanding.

‘I’m sure he’s tried,’ she said, ‘but if the King commands it –’

‘– then there’s nothing else to be done?’

‘No.’

‘And Father couldn’t even be bothered to risk offending Robert if it means saving his daughter from marrying a man with shit for honour?’ Arya asked desperately, her heart sinking, knowing that her sister was right.

‘Men never care as much for their daughters as they do for their sons,’ Sansa replied sadly.

_But Father wasn’t like that. She knew he wasn’t like that._

‘I thought he cared for me,’ Arya mumbled.

Sansa pulled several strands of hair across her face. It did not quite succeed in concealing the bruise on her cheek.

‘I thought he cared for me too,’ she said.

Arya embraced her sister. She felt so thin, so fragile. She had never been this way at Winterfell.

‘I hate him for doing this to you,’ Arya whispered.

‘Father or Joffrey?’ Sansa replied, her voice breaking.

Arya wanted to reply, but couldn’t. Every day, she thought about how Father could have saved her sister simply by refusing to marry her to Joffrey; simply by saying no to a drunken oaf with a crown on his head.

_What if the Kingslayer does the same to me?_

Her blood roared in her ears.

_If he does, I’ll kill him_. _And Joffrey too, while I’m at it._

Suddenly Sansa was smiling and trying to cheer her up.

‘At least he’s good-looking,’ she observed, as though commenting on a knight that had just been unhorsed at a tourney.

Arya appreciated the gesture, but could not help but be annoyed by it.

 ‘His hair is stupid.’

‘Your children will be beautiful.’

Arya groaned. Her children. _With him_. She’d have to…oh, gods.

‘What is it?’ Sansa asked gently.

‘I’ll have to fuck him,’ Arya stated crudely, turning Sansa’s face redder than her hair.

‘ _Arya_! If Father could only hear your language!’

‘I _want_ Father to hear! The Kingslayer is…he’s too _old_ for me!’

‘He’s not _so_ old.’

‘He’s almost Father’s age!’

‘At least he knows his way around a sword.’

‘He hulks and hammers like some Westerosi barbarian in heat!’

‘Like some Westerosi – what?’

‘Never mind!’

‘Come now, Arya, it might not be that bad!’

‘Why are you defending him?’

Sansa’s face fell in disbelief.

‘I’m not, I’m –’

‘I’m being sold like a common whore to some oathbreaking golden-haired shit old enough to be my father and you’re _defending_ him?’

Arya felt terrible. She knew Sansa was just trying to help, but she needed someone to shout at, and she watched the hurt on Sansa’s face with a combination of guilt and relish as her sister continued to flounder in attempting to justify herself.

‘I was just –’

‘I don’t _believe_ you!’

‘Arya –’

‘Get out!’

‘But –’

‘GET OUT!’

Arya began to scrabble about in her trunk for Needle. Sansa gathered her skirts and fled, the door slamming loudly behind her.

‘If you like him so much, why don’t _you_ marry him?’ Arya shouted after her.

Finding Needle, she unsheathed it and flung it across the room, where it wedged like a dagger into her bedpost, piercing the century-old wood. From beneath her room window, she heard laughter, and crossed the room to look. Her father was speaking with the King, the old drunk guffawing at everything he had so say.

Arya’s eyes filled with tears.

‘I shall never forgive him for this.’


	2. Chapter 2

Sometimes, in his rare moments of grief or uncertainty, Tywin Lannister would walk down to the dragon skulls beneath the Red Keep. They reminded him that he had done the right thing by slaughtering one family to protect his own. The gods could send him to the deepest of the seven hells if they so desired, and he would go gladly. But he would know that he had done the right thing.

Tyrion had come to see him at the break of day, surmising, correctly, that the hour would prevent him from citing an engagement or an appointment as an excuse not to see his son. _His son._ A whoremongering, spiteful little creature who had killed his own mother to come into the world. Sometimes when Lord Tywin looked at him, he imagined he had Joanna’s eyes.

_He does not have her eyes and he does not have mine. He is not mine. He is not ours. He is a lesson from the gods, nothing more._

‘I want what is mine by right,’ Tyrion had said, once the traditional unpleasantries and failed attempts at casual conversation were over, ‘I want Casterly Rock.’

Tywin recalled little of the discussion that followed save remarking, in some heat, that he would die screaming before he let that happen.

He had worked all night, and his head ached as he descended the stairs into the bowels of the earth. Something would have to be done about Jaime. It was the only way. A suitable gift to the Faith should be enough to secure absolution from his vows, but the choice of a prospective bride would be infinitely more complicated. She would have to be a highborn girl worthy of the Lannister name, young enough to be fertile, headstrong enough to teach his son humility, but docile enough to hold her tongue and to do as she was told.

It briefly occurred to him that his eldest son might not approve of this arrangement, but he swiftly brushed the thought aside.

_His approval is not important._

Voices began to echo off the walls as Tywin approached the skulls, and, hoping to overhear some useful intrigue, he instinctively hugged the wall and crept forward until he could see the dragon skulls looming out of the darkness and the conspirators chattering beneath them.

How disappointing. There were no conspirators at all, just the youngest of the Stark girls, dressed in a brown leather tunic and breeches, and Joffrey’s youngest, Steffon. The girl was waving a torch about like a weapon, the flames casting mighty shadows onto the walls while Steffon watched intently, clearly enthralled. In a booming voice, she was telling the boy the tale of Harren the Black, stalking about dramatically, her hands slicing the air, jumping, crouching, making the child laugh in delight and shiver in fear. Tywin’s mouth hardened. He did not approve of treating children like fools. But the maesters said the boy was an excruciatingly slow learner, and it was widely believed that he might be simple. Perhaps this was a last resort, though the very idea surprised him. Lady Arya’s impatience with children was very well known. Perhaps she felt sorry for him. More likely she felt sorry for her sister.

‘Harrenhal was meant to be Harren the Black’s legacy,’ the Stark girl declared, holding the torch above her like a beacon, ‘Have I taught you what legacy is, Steffon?’

‘No,’ the boy responded eagerly.

‘It’s what you pass down to your children, and your children’s children. It’s what remains of you when you’re gone.’

‘But what about Harren the Black?’

‘I’ll say no more till you tell me what legacy means,’

‘It’s what remains of you when you’re gone.’

‘Excellent!’

She mussed up his hair. He didn’t seem to mind.

‘Now tell me about Harren the Black!’ the boy demanded.

‘Harren the Black thought Harrenhal would be his legacy,’ Lady Arya continued in a menacing whisper, ‘the greatest fortress ever built. The tallest towers, the strongest walls. Those towers were three times as tall as the Red Keep and the walls five times as thick…what’s the matter?’

The boy was shaking his head.

‘You don’t believe me?’

The shaking continued.

‘Ask your maester,’ the girl insisted, ‘Ask _anyone_! Wait till I tell you about the great hall! It had thirty-five hearths; _thirty-five_ , can you imagine?’

‘Thirty- _five_?’

She was winning him back. Perhaps it was the promise of all that warmth. What a fool. Tywin shuddered to think of the sort of man he would make.

‘Now tell me, Steffon,’ the Stark girl continued, ‘with such high towers, such thick walls and a great hall with thirty-five hearths, do you think anyone would be stupid enough to attack Harrenhal?’

‘No!’ Steffon squeaked, hiding his face in his hands.

‘Exactly!’ she continued, ‘Harrenhal was built to withstand an attack from the land. A million men could have marched on those walls and a million men would have been repelled!’

‘ _Really_?’

‘Yes!

‘A million men?’

‘ _One million men._ ’

‘I want to visit this Harrenhal, Aunt Arya.’

‘I will speak to your mother.’

Tywin smiled. The girl must have known as well as he did that the boy would have forgotten about Harrenhal by this time tomorrow.

The Stark girl crouched before her nephew, dropped the torch, and put her palms flat on the floor.

‘But I think Harren had a problem, Steffon.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. What’s the problem with building a castle that can only withstand an attack from the land?’

The Baratheon boy was shaking his head again. Seven hells. What a dolt.

The Stark girl seized the torch, leapt to her feet and waved the torch about her.

‘It means that when dragons attack you from the air, you’re royally fucked!’

She began to run between the skulls, roaring unconvincingly but enthusiastically in her high voice, whirling the torch about her like a banner, shadows of dragons and distortions of shadows of dragons dancing on the walls.

 _She is going to terrify the boy instead of educating him_ , Tywin thought.

But to Tywin’s astonishment, his dunce of a great-grandson stood up and followed her instead. They darted into the skulls and between the skulls, the Stark girl occasionally leaping into the air and sailing, like an acrobat, through one of Balerion’s eye sockets, making her nephew screech in alarm before charging after her once more. Eventually, he grew tired of running and simply tried to jump on top of her, sending both of them tumbling to the ground in a tangle of limbs and hysterical laughter. Once the gales had ceased, and they lay on their backs looking up at the skulls once more, the Stark girl pointed to each one in turn.

‘Rhaenys rode Meraxes,’ the Stark girl said, ‘Visenya rode Vhaegar. Aegon rode Balerion the Dread.’

‘I _know_ , Aunt Arya,’ the boy replied.

She seemed surprised.

‘You do?’

Steffon shrugged.

‘Everyone knows that.’

The Stark girl shifted, and decided to question him again.

‘Meraxes?’ she asked.

‘Rhaenys,’ the child responded.

And so it continued.

‘Vhaegar?’

‘Visenya.’

‘Balerion?’

‘Ummmm –’

‘Come on, stupid, you can’t have forgotten already! _Who_ the Conqueror?’

‘Aegon the Conqueror?’

‘Good!’

‘Can I have my sweet now?’

‘We’re not finished yet.’

The Stark girl began to count names on her long, slender fingers.

‘Aegon, Rhaenys, Visenya. They attacked from the air, on their dragons. They burned Harrenhal. They changed the rules. That’s what legacy means, Steffon. That’s why everyone still knows their names three hundred years after they’re dead. Aegon. Rhaenys. Visenya.’

‘Does that mean legacy’s important, Aunt Arya?’

The Stark girl sighed in exhaustion.

‘Yes, sweet child. Yes, it does.’

‘ _Now_ can I have my sweet?’

She dug into the pockets of her breeches and passed him one.

‘Tell me the story of Visenya, Aunt Arya,’ he insisted, his mouth full.

 _Revolting_.

But the Stark girl didn’t seem to mind.

‘Visenya Targaryen was a great warrior,’ she began, ‘she had a Valyrian steel sword that she called Dark Sister –’

As Lord Tywin slipped away and began to climb the stairs again, his mind came alive with one thought only.

_She is the one._

This would make things much easier. The girl was a sister soul, an entity who thought exactly as he did.

 He winced as Steffon Baratheon gave another squeal.

 _Well. Perhaps not_ exactly _as he did_.

She was a child of one of the oldest houses in Westeros, and at her age, she was almost certainly fertile. She was intelligent and articulate, but utterly lacking in elegance. No matter. He’d simply lock her up with a septa for a week.

Jaime would be furious, but he would do as he was told. The girl’s father would never consent, but that could easily be overcome. It should only take a few glasses of wine to convince that fool Robert that the idea was not Tywin’s, but his, and a command from the King, once given, could not be overruled.

Tywin almost smiled.

His headache was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter inspired by 02x07


	3. Chapter 3

‘Wake up!’ Tyrion barked, ripping the blankets off Jaime’s bed and throwing his breeches at him.

Jaime mumbled at his brother to fuck off, before pulling the covers back over his head. He did not bother to check what time it was. The answer would simply depress him.

‘Stop being so bloody stubborn and get up!’ Tyrion insisted, pulling the covers off once again and whacking his brother around the head. Jaime hardly felt it.

‘What do you _want_ , Tyrion?’ he yawned unconcernedly.

His brother stood barefoot beside his bed. His hair looked like a bird’s nest, but his eyes were alert and frantic. _Frantic?_

‘She’s gone,’ Tyrion declared breathlessly.

Jaime shrugged.

‘ _Who’s_ gone?’ he asked, his attention wandering already.

‘Your _betrothed_. Her father has half of Westeros out looking for her.’

_Was that all? He had thought it was something serious._

‘She’s run away then?’

‘So it would seem.’

‘Clever girl. I should have thought of it first.’

‘You are cruel, my dear brother.’

Jaime was annoyed. Why should it concern him if the little brat had decided to run? She would turn up eventually. Dead or alive was another matter.

Tyrion seemed to guess his thoughts.

‘The roads are no place for a young girl alone, Jaime.’

Jaime shrugged.

‘She looks like her father.’

Tyrion looked ready to murder him.

‘ _So_?’

‘So the roads may save me from having to be reminded of Eddard Stark each day for the rest of my life,’ Jaime replied, grinning widely.

Tyrion threw up his hands in frustration and stalked to the door. Jaime folded his arms.

‘Where are you going?’ he drawled.

‘To join the search!’ Tyrion declared, clearly irritated with him.

_How curious._

‘Why do _you_ care what happens to her?’

‘Lady Baratheon asked me to help!’

‘Why is Lady Baratheon asking you – _Tyrion_!’

But his brother had gone, slamming the door so loudly that the windows rattled.

Sighing with a martyr’s divine tolerance of suffering, Jaime rolled out of bed, and reached for his boots. A lion didn’t concern himself with the opinions of the sheep. And yet. _And yet._


	4. Chapter 4

Arya Stark damned her luck to the seven hells. She wasn’t moving fast enough.

She hadn’t even travelled ten miles before the bells of the Great Sept had begun to ring; her horse was skittish and nervous; and the trail she was leaving as she crashed through the trees was so glaringly noticeable that only a fool could fail to pick it up.

It was as though Syrio had taught her nothing. She was a novice again; a little girl trying to stand on one toe; a clumsy little fool with a wooden sword. She was no water dancer.

 _It’s because I am with my trouble_. _If you are with your trouble when fighting happens, more trouble for you._

She was reassured by the slender weight of Needle at her hip, and by the considerably greater mass of the greatsword strapped to her back.

_Even if they do find me, they’ll have to kill me before I let them take me._

Arya loved the kingswood in the dark. It was a wild realm of royal blues, blacks and silvers more beautiful than any of the gowns worn by the ladies of the court. She loved the smell of the place; she loved the sound. It sounded alive. It sounded like home.

 _Stop admiring the scenery and move!_ she snapped at herself, and began to look about her for any leafy branches or large ferns that she could use to erase her trail as she rode.

_Why in seven hells didn’t I think of that earlier?_

Nothing suitable was immediately available at ground level, so she steered her horse into a patch of shadow that left much to be desired in terms of a hiding place ( _stupid stupid stupid_ ), and climbed a tree.

She had always meant to escape, but her decision to do so tonight had been entirely spontaneous. Earlier in the evening, a large woman with the longest fingers Arya had ever seen had come to her chambers to make sure that her wedding gown fit her properly. Mother and Sansa had been enraptured by the storm of crimson and gold brocade that cascaded from her shoulders to her toes. It had felt tight around her middle and had made her look like a stupid princess in a song. Arya had wanted to cry. Not because the gown had made her seem uglier in her own eyes (though it had), but because the reason she was wearing it made her so fucking angry.

 _Sold sold sold, like a whore, like a slave, to_ him, _to the Kingslayer._

She sent two good-sized branches tumbling to earth and began to climb down again, savagely wiping her eyes as she felt tears form. Father had done nothing to save her, and neither had Mother.

‘You are a Stark of Winterfell,’ she growled under her breath, ‘you can save yourself.’

The sound of hooves made her press herself harder to the tree trunk as a rider appeared below her, stopping when he caught sight of her horse. _How had they found her so quickly?_

She knew him. She recognised him from his height and his stupid hair. What the fuck was _he_ doing here? Protecting his investment?

_Protecting his prisoner, more like._

Her fingers closing around Needle’s hilt, Arya smiled as she realised that she would only need to drop a few feet to land directly behind him in the saddle. Ample opportunity to cut his throat and to rid herself of this bloody marriage once and for all.

Quiet as a shadow, she drew Needle, and let herself fall into the empty air.


	5. Who is the Lamb and Who is the Knife

When Jaime felt a delicate, barely-perceptible weight drop into the saddle behind him, he reacted immediately, reaching behind him with one hand and flinging whatever it was to the ground.  To his surprise, the dark bundle of robes did not crumple into a heap, groan and lie still, but rolled, graceful as a cat, to its feet again, a ludicrously tiny sword clutched in one hand, its wolf eyes like wildfire.

It was the Stark girl. And unless he was mistaken, she had just tried to kill him.

 _Blasted impudence_.

She came at him again as he dismounted, her tiny sword striking a blow so powerful that the impact of deflecting it drove him to one knee.

 _That’s impossible_.

The girl slid into a distinctly non-Westerosi-looking stance and waited for him as he stumbled to his feet, red-faced and humiliated. The last time he had so gravely underestimated an opponent, he had been her age. The knowledge stung.

To add insult to injury, he hadn’t even bothered to armour himself, reasoning that the little girl probably wouldn’t be much of a threat in the unlikely event of his actually being the one to find her; and as she let her cloak drop to the floor and kicked it elegantly to one side, revealing the suit of boiled leather beneath, he cursed his own stupidity.

‘Put the sword down, my lady,’ he said, in what he hoped was a commanding, reasonable voice.

She seemed to take offence at that, and lunged.

At first, he felt alarmingly disoriented. The girl was everywhere at once, trapping him in a whirlwind of lunges, parries and blows; attacking him from the rear when he expected an assault from the front; continually aiming for his head, his neck and the back of his knees; rolling between his legs to upset his balance; her tiny feet dancing elflike across the earth, never staying in one place. His sword seemed more of a burden than anything else: too large to do any damage and too heavy to allow him to try.

Soon enough, though, patterns began to emerge, just as they did in the technique of every knight and squire he had ever faced in the practice yard, on the tourney grounds and on the battlefield. He began to anticipate the way she would move, and each time (well, almost each time), he was ready. She sensed the change in him, and adjusted accordingly, and soon her eyes were burning into Jaime’s as his searched hers; for the secret, for the next move, for the game. Under ordinary circumstances, it would have mortified him that he was taking so long to dispatch some dirty little tomboy who had never sparred in a practice yard in her life; but the feeling did not plague him at this particular moment. He was having too much fun.

How had she learned to fight this way? The speed and grace of it exhilarated him; no mucking about with lances, war hammers and horses; no grunting under the weight of armour or suffering the walking-through-mud drudgery of the conventional duel, joust or mêlée. It was just her and the blade; her as she became the blade.

‘Bit of a quandary for you,’ she said, clearly enjoying herself, ‘if you kill me, you’ve failed your father. But if you don’t kill me…I’m going to kill you.’

He cursed as she disarmed him, his sword flying off into the trees like a spear. He drew his dagger and flung it at her. She deflected it easily.

Jaime felt naked as his name day.

 _She is going to kill me_.

Instead of killing him, she drew a greatsword from its sheath on her back and tossed it to him. He caught it deftly.

 _Seven hells,_ Jaime thought _,_ a kind of ecstasy taking hold of him as he faced her, _what a woman._

As they circled each other, he felt himself getting hard. Nothing unusual about that. It wouldn’t be the first time it had happened mid-battle. He wondered if she had noticed.

Jaime and Arya drew nearer and nearer to each other, and he smiled at her as a lion would at an object of prey.

Her eyes lighting up like the sun on a blade, she smiled back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That’s all for now, beautiful people! Sequel coming up soon!  
> Thank you for all the kind reviews and feedback! Please keep them coming so I can better spread the love of Arya and Jaime.  
> Valar Morghulis and goodnight!


End file.
